Peterborough, Victoria (Vic), Australia
Peterborough is a small coastal community, population around 200, located 250km SW of Melbourne. It's at the western end of the Great Ocean Road, an internationally known scenic coastal drive.
Peterborough is close to the spectacular coastal scenery of the Twelve Apostles, London Bridge and the Bay of Islands. We look out on to the Southern Ocean, with nothing between us and Antarctica, 2000 miles away to the south.
Port Campbell is 12km to the east and Warrnambool is the regional centre, 50km to the west. A little further to the west lies the Tower Hill national park and the picturesque fishing town of Port Fairy.
Peterborough's attractions are the coastal scenery, sandy beaches and some spectacular views. For facilities, we don't have many, but all the essential things are here. We have a post office/store/take-away, a general store and bottle shop, a motel, a pub and two camping sites.
For recreation, the ocean offers swimming, surfing and fishing. Diving to explore the various shipwreck sites around Peterborough is another possibility. Peterborough has several quiet sandy beaches and bays to enjoy the ocean. Port Campbell provides the nearest beach patrolled by lifesavers during summer.
Shipwreck siites around Peterborough include The Falls of Halladale, Schomberg, Newfield, Antares and The Children.
Curdies inlet and river offers more fishing, river cruises from the marvellously named Boggy Creek Pub, and there's plenty of coastal bird life to watch.
Peterborough itself has a challenging 9 hole golf course between the town and the cliff tops. There's also tennis courts, a new children's playground and barbeque facilities. You can even take a sight-seeing flight from an airstrip 1km east of Peterborough. But most of all Peterborough is one of those sleepy coastal towns where you should be relaxing and just taking in the fresh air.
There's plenty of wildlife around, most notably the many varieties of coastal birds including pelicans and eagles. On land we have a vast population of rabbits in the coastal heath. But you might be lucky enough to spot a seal, or even a whale offshore, whilst on land some of the local wildlife includes kangaroos, echidnas, bandicoots, wombats, snakes and lots more.
Our coastal location means that we have a lot of weather, but mostly it's mild and sunny, in the temperature range 10-25 degrees. Check out today's weather forecast.
Some places to visit close to Peterborough include:
Great Ocean Road coastal scenery and features including: Bay of Islands, the Grotto, London Bridge, the Arch, Loch Ard Gorge, Twelve Apostles, Moonlight Head.
Childers Cove (20km W) - marvellous quiet bay and cliffs around the area "The Chidren" was wrecked last century.
Timboon Farmhouse Cheese - just a short distance inland from Peterborough. Superb organic cheeses, specialising mainly in the soft cheeses like Brie, Camembert, Feta, Timboonzola. Close to Warrnambool there is also Cheeseworld, a much larger operation owned by Kraft, but worth a stop if you like to try or buy some exotic varieties of cheese.
Port Campbell township - I recommend Emma's tearooms for some good food, but there are plenty of other choices. There are also some small museums, surfing and tourist shops to interest you.
Berryworld at Timboon has some superb strawberries and related produce, that you can pick yourself, or just purchase if you are in a hurry.
Some other links with information about Peterborough and surrounding area:
Great Ocean Road tourist organisation - some good information and images of the region
Parks Victoria - info on the Bay of Islands and Port Campbell parks
Lonely Planet's guide to Victoria
Travel Australia - info on Port Campbell and Peterborough
The Standard is Warrnambool's daily local newspaper, also published online.
Local radio stations are 3WL/3WV (1602 & 594) - for ABC western Victoria, and Warrnambool's 3YB (882) commercial station.
On a slightly wider horizon, if you are interested in the state of Victoria or Australia generally, check out some of these links:
The Age - our Victorian newspaper
ABC - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Maps and Tourist Information from all over Australia (lots of good detail here, if you are planning a trip)
Vicnet has a vast array of Victorian travel and tourism information and useful links.
Tourism Victoria has some useful links as well..
And if you need a dictionary to understand the Australian English, perhaps you should try Larry's Aussie Slang page to help you figure it all out.
Peterborough - What's in a name?
Our Peterborough is probably the smallest of 5 places with the same name.
In Australia, our bigger brother is Peterborough, South Australia (SA).
In eastern Canada and USA there are three other communities with the same name.
Peterborough, Ontario (ON), Canada
Peterborough, New Hampshire (NH), USA
And there is Peterborough canton (district) in Quebec (QC), Canada. So far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to be a town as such, but if you know differently, please let me know.
In England, there is the large city of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire from which all the others have derived their names.